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  1. #1
    Senior Member NoIllegalsAllowed's Avatar
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    NJ working hard to give free healthcare to latino illegals

    Area clinics try to meet immigrants' health needs
    Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/7/07

    BY ZACH PATBERG
    STAFF WRITER
    http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI ... /710070427

    RED BANK β€” Five-year-old Cesia howled in anguish, forgetting her vow to be tough, as the nurse stuck the hepatitis B vaccine in her arm. Then afterward, curled in her mother's lap, her eyes puffy and red, the young Salvadoran child came to an un-childlike conclusion: "I'd rather get that than get sick," she said through a translator.

    It was the third time Ana, 33, had brought her daughter to the Parker Family Health Center since she and her husband emigrated to Red Bank from El Salvador four months ago. Last time, it was to cure Cesia's ear infection; before that, another vaccine.

    "The medicine is free, we're well-treated and we don't have to pay," said Ana, also speaking through a translator. "Also I feel free to speak my own language."

    Later, however, Ana acknowledged the obvious reason for frequenting the clinic: "My only option is here."

    For undocumented, uninsured Hispanics like Ana β€” who spoke on condition that her last name not be used β€” opportunities for health care are scarce; and most of what services are available are often limited by language barriers and by funding and staff numbers that fail to keep pace with the rising tide of poor and uninsured immigrants.

    More than a third of New Jersey's 1.3 million Hispanics are uninsured, according to a 2005 state report. In Monmouth and Ocean counties from 2000 to 2006, the demographic has grown by 38 percent.

    Most of Monmouth's 9.7 percent of uninsured residents are Latino, its public health coordinator, Michael Meddis, said. And Edward Rumen, spokesman for the Ocean County Health Department, estimates that of the thousands who come through his doors seeking treatment, about half are Hispanic, with 80 percent of them uninsured.

    That leaves perhaps the fewest health services for one of the fastest growing and most at-risk groups. According to state figures, Hispanics had the highest tuberculosis morbidity rate in 2006, are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from asthma, have the highest childhood obesity rate and a death count from HIV/AIDS that's six times higher than whites. They also showed the slowest decline in overall death rate: 0.3 percent between 1993 and 2003, compared with a 20 percent drop among non-Hispanic blacks.

    Also playing a role is the susceptibility to physical injuries because of long and intense hours of manual labor. Yet virtually all of the dozen or so centers available in the two counties for the uninsured are limited to primary care, which means X-rays, long-term medication and physical and mental therapy are often out of reach.

    Ana's husband, Carlos, hurt his fingers a couple months ago while on the job as a construction and landscaping worker. Though Charity Care, a state-run service to help the uninsured with treatment, covered the cost of his emergency room visit, the subsequent physical therapy proved unaffordable.

    Eyes downcast, embarrassed by her sudden tears, Ana said Thursday at the Parker clinic that her husband had started working again but "was just helping now."

    The income setback has made it even harder for her family to survive, she said.

    Limited resources

    Such an inability to provide additional services is the most frustrating part of Marta Silverberg's job as executive director at the Monmouth Health Center in Long Branch.

    As a federally qualified clinic, the center does get state funding. New Jersey increased its spending on such clinics by $5 million to reach $40 million in this year's budget. Yet this still does not provide enough for services beyond basic care, Silverberg said. She is now trying to compensate through grants but said the intense competitiveness has made it an arduous process.

    "It's the population with a lot of needs and a lot of health issues that have the most difficult time getting the treatment," she said. Silverberg's annual patient list has ballooned from 29,000 to 42,000 since 2004, and about 80 percent of them are Hispanics.

    Fatima Potente, director of the Hispanic Resource Center in Asbury Park, has also struggled with flat funding in the face of a rising Latino population. Her budget has remained at $400,000 for at least the last seven years, she said, leaving her with an anemic staff that has been forced at times to turn clients away who need help.

    "I'd love to get to the point that everyone comes here is seen the first time around," she said. On-the-spot care is especially important, advocates say, due to Latinos' transportation difficulties.

    Irene Lozano, the manager of Our Lady of Providence clinic in Neptune City, remembers one patient who stopped coming because of the $100 round-trip taxi fare she had to pay coming from her home in Brick.

    Such commuting problems arise from a shortage of clinics, health officials say, especially in Ocean County. Lozano has started volunteering to hold health days at the St. Anthony Claret church in Lakewood to educate and advise the ever mounting Latino population in the town.

    "But we need more," she said.

    A shortage of services, combined with a lack of awareness on what's available, has also caused a shift in where Latinos resort to, sometimes in desperation, for health care.

    Jackeline Biddle, for example, is a private attorney and nurse who works in critical care, not the community health sector where the need is strongest among uninsured Hispanics. Yet because she speaks Spanish and is a member of the Latino Leadership Alliance, she often gets calls from Hispanics seeking advice.

    "Getting those types of phone calls is very difficult," Biddle said. "Why would they call lawyers with health questions? People just don't know, and even if they do, they don't have the resources to get to these places."

    Serving the population

    In light of the problem, health clinics and agencies are finding ways to adapt to the Hispanic growth and improve their services. Rumen, of the Ocean County Health Department, said that virtually all the county's services now have bilingual clerks and information pamphlets. A childhood intervention program has kicked off recently to assist Hispanics, with a particularly heavy push in Lakewood.

    "We make sure we get hold of these children early on so they can be mainstreamed by the time they're 5 or 6 years old," Rumen said.

    The Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey has launched a similar initiative, called the Special Needs Campaign, that urges parents to contact them if they believe their child may be underdeveloped in some way. And the Monmouth County Health Department is two years into its Community Health Improvement Plan that has focused on "barriers of health care," such as language, as one of its six areas to improve upon.

    The state on the whole has increased its Charity Care funding in this year's budget by roughly $5 million.

    In general, education is the key, especially with wary Hispanic immigrants.

    "We have to get through to them that we aren't interested at all in their legal status," Rumen said. "We're interested in their public health."

    Yet the situation, while problematic, is still manageable, said Mary Nicosia, director of the Parker clinic. Having seen 4,200 patients so far this year, more than half of them Hispanic, her waiting list has stretched to a month. But Nicosia points to the other two free clinics and the Visiting Nurses Association in the county.

    "It's not like there are no other places to go," she said. "We're all in this together."

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    Zach Patberg: (732) 557-5739 or zpatberg@app.com
    Free Ramos and Compean NOW!

  2. #2
    Senior Member americangirl's Avatar
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    "The medicine is free, we're well-treated and we don't have to pay," said Ana, also speaking through a translator. "Also I feel free to speak my own language."
    Problem is, honey...your medicine ISN'T "free". Somebody has to pay for it you dumbbell, and that somebody is we the American taxpayers.

    Not only that, but we have to pay for your translator so you can "speak your own language" too.
    Calderon was absolutely right when he said...."Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico".

  3. #3
    Senior Member NoIllegalsAllowed's Avatar
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    Re: NJ working hard to give free healthcare to latino illega

    Quote Originally Posted by NoIllegalsAllowed
    Area clinics try to meet immigrants' health needs
    Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/7/07

    BY ZACH PATBERG
    STAFF WRITER
    http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AI ... /710070427


    "We have to get through to them that we aren't interested at all in their legal status," Rumen said. "We're interested in their public health."
    That's the problem.
    Free Ramos and Compean NOW!

  4. #4
    Senior Member NoIllegalsAllowed's Avatar
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    The attitude of entitlement is sickening.

    So you hop the border and now think you're entitled to free healthcare?
    Free Ramos and Compean NOW!

  5. #5
    Senior Member butterbean's Avatar
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    "The medicine is free, we're well-treated and we don't have to pay," said Ana, also speaking through a translator. "Also I feel free to speak my own language."

    Later, however, Ana acknowledged the obvious reason for frequenting the clinic: "My only option is here."
    Nothing is free! American taxpayers are paying for all of it.

    Hey Ana - this isn't your "only option"! Here is your only option: PACK YOUR FAMILY AND GO HOME. YOUR OWN COUNTRY SHOULD BE TAKING CARE OF YOUR HEALTH NEEDS. NOT AMERICANS.
    RIP Butterbean! We miss you and hope you are well in heaven.-- Your ALIPAC friends

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  6. #6
    Senior Member fedupinwaukegan's Avatar
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    I pass a free clinic many times during the week. There are people lined up outside the door. Many, I mean many of the women are expecting.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  7. #7
    tubby's Avatar
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    illegal alien healthcare

    Another clinic opened in Sept in central NJ It's county run. At least two others in county operated by non-profits. Don't know source of funds.

    Bill their native countries. If it won't pay, then freeze and confiscate their governmental assets.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Nicole's Avatar
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    Re: illegal alien healthcare

    Quote Originally Posted by tubby
    Another clinic opened in Sept in central NJ It's county run. At least two others in county operated by non-profits. Don't know source of funds.

    Bill their native countries. If it won't pay, then freeze and confiscate their governmental assets.


    Gosh I wish we had a president with the courage and strength to do that.

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